Peter James - The Perfect Murder

Don was coming over. He said they had to drink a toast. She wasn’t really keen to see him at the moment, but she didn’t want to be alone in the house. She had decided to make him supper. It was strange, she thought, that he had exactly the same taste in food as Victor. She had read that when a man leaves his wife for a younger model, he often chooses someone who looks like his wife. Maybe a woman chooses a new man who has the same tastes as her old one?

She was thinking about all the police she had seen in the past couple of days. She was trying to work out if she had said the right things. It had been tricky. But she felt she had kept calm. She would talk through it all with Don tonight. They should check to see what they had missed and what they needed to do.

As she got out of the car in the fading light, a strong wind was blowing. She noticed several of her neighbours’ curtains twitching. They were watching her. She decided it would be safest to put the car in the garage, so they would not see her unloading the bottles.

Don had told her not to drive on the new garage floor for a few days to let it harden. But it seemed pretty hard now.

She lifted the door, stared at the smooth cement and tested it with her feet. It was fine! Hard as rock!

She drove in and pulled the door shut behind her. It closed with a clang that seemed to echo for ever. Then she carried everything through into the kitchen. She put the wine straight into the fridge. Then she switched on the television and all the lights in the house, because she was nervous that Victor’s ghost might suddenly appear again. After that she went upstairs to the bedroom and stepped out of her work clothes. She freshened up, sprayed herself with the perfume that Don liked, and laid out her short black cocktail dress on the bed.

At that moment, the front doorbell rang.

She frowned. It was only a quarter past six. Don wasn’t due until seven.

Dressed only in her knickers and bra, she hurried into Victor’s den and looked out of the window. Her throat tightened. There were two marked police cars out in the street, and a white van with police markings on it. The two detectives who had come round earlier were standing at the front door.

The bell rang again.

‘Coming!’ she called out, trying not to sound anxious.

She took a deep breath and hastily put her work clothes back on. Then she hurried back downstairs.

As she opened the door, Detective Sergeant Brett held up a sheet of paper. A group of police officers in yellow jackets stood behind him and Detective Constable Badger.

‘Mrs Smiley,’ DS Brett said, ‘we have a search warrant for your house.’ He showed it to her.

She was shaking as she looked at it, but it was just a blur. ‘A search warrant?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘What is this about?’

Half a dozen policemen walked past her, followed by the two detectives.

‘Would anyone like tea or coffee?’ she asked. Then she added, ‘I’ve got some biscuits now!’

No one replied. Suddenly, every room in the house seemed to have a police officer in it.

‘Expecting company, are you?’ DS Brett said, looking at the two raw steaks on the kitchen drainer.

‘Just me and the cat,’ she said.

‘Lucky cat. Prime rib steak!’ he replied, snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

‘He’s very fussy,’ she answered lamely.

‘Have a seat,’ DS Brett said, pointing to a kitchen chair. ‘We’re going to be a while.’

Upstairs, DC Badger pushed open a door into a tiny room that looked like a spare bedroom. There was a cold draught, and a strong smell of fresh paint. There was also a fainter smell of bitter almonds, which he did not notice.

He switched on the light. The room looked like it had been freshly decorated. The walls were painted a deep blue colour. A crisp white blind flapped in the wind that was howling in through the wide-open window. He noticed a single bed with a cream candlewick counterpane. The bed was made up but not slept in. There was a bedside table with a lamp, and a small chest of drawers. He began to check through them.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Joan stared blankly at an episode of Poirot on the television. She switched channels. It was another Agatha Christie, this time a Miss Marple. Hastily, she switched again. John Thaw, in Morse , was standing at a grave being opened. She switched once more. Now it was the actor Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes.

‘Stop it, you bastard!’ she mouthed silently. She switched to BBC 1. It should be the end of the six o’clock news.

Instead, she saw Victor’s face smiling out at her from the screen. She was about to change channels again when she heard the voice of a newscaster saying, ‘Sussex Police are gravely worried about Victor Smiley, a diabetic who has not been seen for several days.’

She switched the television off.

Her heart was crashing around inside her chest.

Moments later, DC Badger entered the kitchen still wearing the latex gloves and holding a small, dark-red booklet. ‘This appears to be your husband’s passport. I found it in a desk in the front bedroom, which I presume is your husband’s office.’

‘Well done!’ she said. ‘What a relief! I searched everywhere for it.’

‘Not hard enough,’ he said.

Before she had time to reply, another officer came in. He was wearing a black vest with the letters POLSA on a badge on his chest. He was holding Victor’s mobile phone. ‘This appears to be your husband’s mobile phone, Mrs Smiley. I just checked the number.’

‘Amazing! Where did you find it?’

‘In a drawer in the hall table.’

‘I – I looked there,’ she said quietly.

‘Not hard enough?’ he said.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Well done!’

DC Badger was staring at her. She felt her innards squirming. It was as if her intestines had turned into restless snakes.

Then Detective Sergeant Brett came back into the kitchen. ‘We’d like to move the Vauxhall Astra out of the garage. Do you have the keys, please?’

They were in front of her, on the kitchen table, beside the carrier bag containing the prawn cocktails.

‘I think my husband may have them with him,’ she said. Then she saw the detective looking at them. ‘Ah! No. What a surprise! Here they are!’

‘What a surprise,’ he said.

She stood by the internal door to the garage and watched the DS open the swing door. He reversed the car out. Joan stared in shock at what she saw.

The cement had sunk where the wheels of the car had been. A mound had risen in the centre of it. It was like a fat pot-belly sticking up through the floor. It was like Victor’s belly. Cracked cement lay all along it and on either side of it.

She watched in dismay as four police officers appeared with shovels. A fifth officer had a pick-axe. They removed their yellow jackets and began to dig.

Suddenly, she heard a humming sound in her ears. The Dam Busters theme tune. It was Victor’s favourite sodding tune.

It was the tune he always hummed when he was happy.

He continued to hum it throughout the next hour as she stood and watched.

He was humming it as the police steadily unearthed him. Bit by bit by bit.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Four days later, at six o’clock on Sunday evening, Joan was released on police bail. This was after three nights in custody and an endless series of interviews with different detectives.

She took a taxi home. It was not Don’s taxi, of course. He had not been so lucky. He was remanded in custody, charged with Victor’s murder.

Joan felt pretty pleased with how she had handled it all. She had given a performance worthy of an Oscar! The detectives seemed to believe her version of events. She told them that Victor had come home and had found Don there. He had attacked Don, and Don had hit him with a hammer. Then Don had threatened to tell the police that she had killed him, unless she kept quiet.